Page 25 of Thief of the Ton
“Of course,” Lavinia said.
Arm in arm, they returned to the cottage.
My soul mate…
What if she’d already met her soul mate—her own King Arthur—only to have lost him? The only things she could recall were the color of his eyes and the warmth of his voice.
And, in all likelihood, he’d have forgottenheraltogether and found love with another—a woman who was not the daughter of an impoverished, disgraced viscount.
Perils there may be in London, but Lavinia’s heart was not for the taking, because it would always belong to him—hersoul mate.
So, she could venture forth into London, her heart encased in armor, and continue her quest to restore Papa’s peace of mind.
Chapter Eight
She was theloveliest thing Peregrine had ever seen.
The young woman standing at the entrance to Lady Foxwell’s drawing room, accompanied by a sour-faced, sharp-nosed matriarch, lacked the air of superiority that rendered creatures such as Lady Irma Fairchild unpalatable. She was too tall to be considered as delectable as the likes of Lady Jersey, and her manner exuded discomfort. Rather than the brittle porcelain skin of the finely bred debutante, her face bore a rosy glow of health and vibrancy. A straight nose—a little too long to render her classically beautiful—sharp, well-defined eyebrows, and a stubbornness about the chin were the marks of a hellion.
As for her eyes…
A rather unremarkable shade of brown, they carried a look of discomfort as she swept her gaze about the room, as if searching for predators. They reminded him of the expression in a falcon’s eyes—a bird that had been trained to return to her master’s hand, but still yearned to soar into freedom as mistress of her world.
To the untrained eye, she was like any other young woman. But Peregrine could sense her unease. Perhaps she was a commoner’s daughter, or mayhap a fog of doubt surrounded her parentage. Whatever her history, she believed herself an outsider.
And, to Peregrine, there was nothing more intriguing than a misfit—a free spirit who would not be tamed by the kind of flattery that rendered most women malleable in a man’s hands.
Her gown was exquisite, yet she wore it with neither pride nor pleasure. A soft shade of pink, it caught the light and shimmered as she crossed the drawing room floor, the matriarch at her side. The fluidity of her skirts enabled a man to glimpse her form as she walked—long, shapely legs, which flared at the hips into delectable curves.
His gaze lingered over the curve of her throat. Her lace tuck preserved her modesty, but the mere thought of the treasures beneath was enough to warm his blood…
Bloody hell!
He drew in a sharp breath at the surge of powerful lust. He was a grown man, for heaven’s sake, not a lusty lad of fifteen, eager to stroke himself to pleasure at the notion of a pair of breasts.
A very delectable pair of breasts…
…and a pair of delightful buds poking at the silk of her gown, just waiting to be tasted…
I’ve abstained for too long.
Yes, that was it. Since relieving himself of his mistress almost a month ago, he’d experienced a drought.
It was time to drink from the oasis once more.
And the intriguing young woman was unlikely to agree to a quick shag. Doubtless, the purple-clad crow accompanying her would have his balls if he so much as spoke to her out of turn.
And Peregrine wasn’t in the mood forcourtship—a tedious exercise in which a man pranced about like a prize pony to ingratiate himself with a chaperone, then endured protracted negotiations to determine how much compensation he’d be given to take a girl off her father’s hands. Then came the far less palatable prospect ofmarriage, where he’d have to listen to a vicar droning on about the sanctity of a union, then bed a shivering, screaming virgin whose mama had schooled her into believing that the act was a sordid encounter to be endured out of duty—and as infrequently as possible.
No, a wife was not something Peregrine wished to saddle himself with. By the time a young woman was old enough to enter Society, any free will had been schooled out of her—like a falcon bred in captivity, she knew no better.
But, occasionally, there existed a falcon who could never quite be tamed. Docile she may be at first, but if a man lowered his guard, she’d drive her beak into his flesh.
He glanced up and caught his breath.
A pair of eyes was trained on him. The brown, which he had at first dismissed as being unremarkable, was a soft hazel that shimmered with tones of green and gold. Her lips—plump and round—parted slightly. Then she flicked out her tongue, running the tip along her bottom lip until it glistened.
Peregrine’s breeches grew a little too tight for comfort. He shifted position in an effort to conceal his growing manhood and lifted his hand to adjust his collar. Her eyes darkened, and his heart tightened, as if an invisible thread linked the two of them. The expression in her eyes seemed familiar, as if her soul called to his…
